A Victory for the American People Against the
Export-Import Bank
Sen.
Mike Lee / @SenMikeLee / June 14, 2016
The victory came in the form of
preventing the ascension of Mark McWatters to the Board of Directors of the
Export-Import Bank of the United States, whose nomination Sen. Richard Shelby,
R-Ala, has successfully bottled up in the Senate Banking Committee. (Photo:
Department of Defense/Sipa USA/Newscom)
commentary
By
Mike Lee is a Republican senator
from Utah.
It’s not every day that the American
people score a victory over the global elite, but that’s exactly what happened
last week.
The victory came in the form of
preventing the ascension of Mark McWatters to the Board of Directors of the
Export-Import Bank of the United States, whose nomination Sen. Richard
Shelby, R-Ala., has successfully bottled up in the Senate Banking Committee.
Created by executive order during
the height of the Great Depression, the Ex-Im Bank has been used as a tool to
reward politically connected elites, both in the United States and abroad, for
decades.
Here’s how it works: a large
corporation pays money to lobbyists and politicians so that Ex-Im will leverage
the full faith and credit of American taxpayers to guarantee loans used to
finance global transactions.
Because these loans are backed by
you, the United States taxpayer, these politically favored global corporations
are able to secure below-market interest rates. The difference between the
market interest rate the global corporations would have paid to finance their
transactions and the below-market interest rate made available by Ex-Im’s
guarantees acts as a giant taxpayer subsidy for these global corporations.
The lobbyists and politicians
supporting these global corporations will tell you that Ex-Im’s loan guarantees
are cost-free programs that support American middle-class jobs.
Not quite.
First of all, as any economist will
tell you, there is no such thing as a free lunch. As the Congressional Research
Service has explained, “Subsidized export financing merely shifts production
among sectors within the economy, rather than adding to the overall level of
economic activity, and subsidizes foreign consumption at the expense of
domestic consumption.”
Secondly, if these global
corporations are so concerned about American middle-class jobs, then why do
they spend millions of dollars lobbying foreign governments to create and
maintain their own version of our Export-Import Bank? These corporations aren’t
concerned as much about American jobs as they are about maximizing the number
of foreign governments that subsidize their business.
And who exactly is on the other end
of all these Ex-Im financed deals? China mostly.
China is by far the biggest
beneficiary of Ex-Im guaranteed loans. And since most of that financing
benefits state-owned firms, the Ex-Im Bank is one of the largest subsidizers of
Chinese communist officials in the world.
For instance, in 2013, the
Export-Import Bank financed a $63 million deal to help build a semiconductor
manufacturing plant in China. How exactly does subsidizing Chinese
semiconductor manufactures help save American jobs?
It doesn’t.
But it does help line the pockets of
the governing elite both here and in China. That is what the Export-Import Bank
is all about.
By blocking the nomination of
McWatters to the Export-Import Bank’s board of directors, Shelby has denied
Ex-Im the quorum it needs to authorize loan guarantees over $10 million.
Between 2007 and 2014, 84 percent of the bank’s subsidy and loan-guarantee
deals exceeded $10 million, and the vast majority were given to the wealthiest,
most well-connected businesses that should have no problem acquiring financing
on the open market.
The American people have not
succeeded in shutting down this spigot of cash to the world’s global elite yet,
but we are gaining votes in the House and Senate every year.
We will win eventually.
THE “HOPE &
CHANGE” HUCKSTER WHO REALLY WAS GEORGE BUSH’S
THIRD AND FOURTH TERMS ON
STEROIDS!
“The
long-term reversal of the social gains made by the working class has
only
accelerated in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis. President Obama
has
overseen one of the greatest transfers of wealth from the working
class
to
the rich in world history.”
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE STOOD
PASSIVELY WHILE THE BANKSTERS
LOADED THE POCKETS OF THE
DEMOCRAT PARTY AND WENT TO
LOOTING A TRILLION DOLLARS OUT OF
THE HOME VALUES OF AMERICA.
EVEN BEFORE HE TOOK OFFICE, THE
PSYCOPATH HUCKSTER FROM
CHICAGO, BARACK OBAMA, HAD
ALREADY FILLED HIS POCKETS WITH
MORE BANKSTER BRIBES THAN ANY
PRESIDENT IN HISTORY.
WHAT DID THESE BANKSTERS KNOW
THAT THE REST OF US DIDN'T ABOUT
THE "HOPE & CHANGE" HUCKSTER?
OBAMA KEPT HIS PROMISE HANDING HIS
CRONIES BILLIONS IN NO STRINGS, NO
INTEREST LOANS AND MADE SURE HIS
BANKSTER-OWNED AG HOLDER WOULD
KEEP THEM OUT OF PRISON! OBOMB'S
SECOND AG, LORETTA LYNCH WAS ALL
BUT HAND PICKED BY OBAMA'S
BANKSTERS AND CAME FROM THE
BANKSTER SECTOR. SHE CONTINUES TO
PROTECT AND SERVE OBAMA'S
BANKSTERS!
AND THEIR LOOTING ONLY CONTINUES......!
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-bankers-could-suffer-fallout-from-vote-to-leave-eu-1466333181
Working-Class
Britons Unsympathetic to Banker Brexit Woes
Some Britons
see ‘Brexit’ effect as comeuppance for perceived greed of London’s financial
sector
The U.K.’s financial sector, largely centered in London,
could face turmoil if the country elects to leave the European Union. HSBC
Holdings PLC has said that up to 1,000 staff could be moved in the aftermath of
a ‘Brexit.’ Photo: Leon Neal/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
By
Sara Schaefer Muñoz and
Giles Turner
The Wall
Street Journal
June 19,
2016 6:46 a.m. ET
LONDON—Politicians and bankers have warned that a U.K. exit
from the European Union will cripple London’s financial sector.
But that argument gets the short shrift from East London
construction worker Steve McIlhagga.
From the blue-collar
neighborhood of Poplar in East London, Mr.
McIlhagga, 53 years old, sees an independent U.K. as better for
working-class Britons—and said he wouldn’t be bothered by a
few bankers losing jobs.
McIlhagga, 53 years old, sees an independent U.K. as better for
working-class Britons—and said he wouldn’t be bothered by a
few bankers losing jobs.
“They were
the ones who drove this country into recession, and
are still getting millions in bonuses!” said Mr. McIlhagga, clad
in a dusty hard hat on his way home one recent afternoon. “They
want to stay in the EU because they are making money. But
where I live, there’s a lot of unemployment. I can’t afford things.
Everything’s gotten worse.”
are still getting millions in bonuses!” said Mr. McIlhagga, clad
in a dusty hard hat on his way home one recent afternoon. “They
want to stay in the EU because they are making money. But
where I live, there’s a lot of unemployment. I can’t afford things.
Everything’s gotten worse.”
With recent
polls showing a several percentage point lead for the
“Leave” camp ahead of the June 23 vote, U.K. Prime Minister
David Cameron and the country’s business leaders have
continued to argue that Britain should stay in the EU, in large part
because its financial hub is on the line and firms might be forced
to relocate bankers out of the U.K.
“Leave” camp ahead of the June 23 vote, U.K. Prime Minister
David Cameron and the country’s business leaders have
continued to argue that Britain should stay in the EU, in large part
because its financial hub is on the line and firms might be forced
to relocate bankers out of the U.K.
But, in
a country still scarred by the 2008 financial crisis, saving
the bankers is a difficult rallying cry.
the bankers is a difficult rallying cry.
“If you said
bankers might leave, some people might cheer,” said
Mark Boleat, chairman of the City of London Policy and
Resources Committee.
Mark Boleat, chairman of the City of London Policy and
Resources Committee.
Nevertheless,
Mr. Boleat and others have continued to warn that
loss of access to the single European market in the case of a
British exit, or “Brexit,” would be a dire blow to London as a
regional business hub.
loss of access to the single European market in the case of a
British exit, or “Brexit,” would be a dire blow to London as a
regional business hub.
Leaving the
EU ”would no doubt destroy a huge amount of jobs,
not just here in London but also in the financial services centers
we have in the country,” the prime minister said in a speech at a
World Economic Forum event last month, adding that “100,000
jobs could go in the City of London alone.”
not just here in London but also in the financial services centers
we have in the country,” the prime minister said in a speech at a
World Economic Forum event last month, adding that “100,000
jobs could go in the City of London alone.”
Banks have
been increasingly vocal on the potential
consequences of a vote to exit the EU. In a visit to the U.K.
earlier this month, J.P. Morgan Chase JPM 0.10 % & Co. chief
James Dimon said the bank may need to move some of its 16,000
U.K staff to the Continent. HSBC Holdings HSBC 2.10 % PLC
has also said up to 1,000 staff could be moved.
consequences of a vote to exit the EU. In a visit to the U.K.
earlier this month, J.P. Morgan Chase JPM 0.10 % & Co. chief
James Dimon said the bank may need to move some of its 16,000
U.K staff to the Continent. HSBC Holdings HSBC 2.10 % PLC
has also said up to 1,000 staff could be moved.
“We would
face attempts to lure businesses from London to Paris,
Frankfurt, and Dublin,” said Lucy Thomas, deputy director of the
Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, in a report.
Frankfurt, and Dublin,” said Lucy Thomas, deputy director of the
Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, in a report.
But such
arguments haven’t moved Joanna Harrison, a 28-year-
old London gallery assistant, who sees the vote as “a symbolic
thing about whether we leave Europe.”
old London gallery assistant, who sees the vote as “a symbolic
thing about whether we leave Europe.”
“There are a
lot bigger things than worrying
about bankers and their jobs,” she said.
about bankers and their jobs,” she said.
To reach
skeptics such as Mr. McIlhagga, members of the
campaign to stay in the European market have tried to drive home
the point that a blow to Britain’s financial sector could cause job
losses in areas such as food services, hotels and property
development. The financial-services industry accounts for just
3.4% of the U.K.’s total jobs, but 8% of GDP, contributing
£129.9 billion ($186.41 billion) to the U.K. economy in 2014,
according to government data.
campaign to stay in the European market have tried to drive home
the point that a blow to Britain’s financial sector could cause job
losses in areas such as food services, hotels and property
development. The financial-services industry accounts for just
3.4% of the U.K.’s total jobs, but 8% of GDP, contributing
£129.9 billion ($186.41 billion) to the U.K. economy in 2014,
according to government data.
The U.K.
financial sector also contributed around 11.5% of U.K.
tax receipts in 2014, according to a report from consulting firm
PricewaterhouseCoopers and the City of London Corp., the
governing body of London’s financial sector.
tax receipts in 2014, according to a report from consulting firm
PricewaterhouseCoopers and the City of London Corp., the
governing body of London’s financial sector.
Statistics
such as this can ring hollow in London’s more deprived
districts. Residents often feel far removed from the shiny towers,
bustling exchanges and money making power of the U.K.
capital’s financial core.
districts. Residents often feel far removed from the shiny towers,
bustling exchanges and money making power of the U.K.
capital’s financial core.
“You don’t
really see much of an effect here” of London’s
financial center, said construction worker Andrew Wards, 29,
who of an industrial neighborhood near the Olympic Park. He
plans to vote to leave the EU.
financial center, said construction worker Andrew Wards, 29,
who of an industrial neighborhood near the Olympic Park. He
plans to vote to leave the EU.
One
impact Mr. McIlhagga has seen is that of well-paid City
workers spilling over into East London’s more desirable areas and
driving up housing costs, he said.
workers spilling over into East London’s more desirable areas and
driving up housing costs, he said.
“A
one-bedroom flat in my neighborhood is £250,000 [about
$360,000] and that’s more than double what it was 10 years ago.
It’s bloody ridiculous,” said Mr. McIlhagga, who earns £360, or
around $520, a week.
$360,000] and that’s more than double what it was 10 years ago.
It’s bloody ridiculous,” said Mr. McIlhagga, who earns £360, or
around $520, a week.
It appears
those who support staying in the EU may have
underestimated just how much ordinary citizens dislike bankers.
underestimated just how much ordinary citizens dislike bankers.
In 2013, a
survey of more than 11,000 individuals by YouGov
and Cambridge University found 83% of respondents thought
bankers were “greedy and get paid too much,” while 80% thought
banks weren’t doing enough to “get us out of this economic crisis
which they helped cause.”
and Cambridge University found 83% of respondents thought
bankers were “greedy and get paid too much,” while 80% thought
banks weren’t doing enough to “get us out of this economic crisis
which they helped cause.”
Institutions
such as the Royal Bank of Scotland
RBS 5.02 % PLC and other banks had to be
bailed out by taxpayers during the
financial crisis, to the tune of more than £100
billion. Many chief executives still receive big
bonuses and their high-end lifestyles are splashed
across the front of U.K. tabloids.
RBS 5.02 % PLC and other banks had to be
bailed out by taxpayers during the
financial crisis, to the tune of more than £100
billion. Many chief executives still receive big
bonuses and their high-end lifestyles are splashed
across the front of U.K. tabloids.
A
2014 headline in popular U.K. tabloid the Daily Mirror blasted
“fat cat bankers” for receiving a total of £80 billion in payouts,
“while millions of families are still suffering.”
“fat cat bankers” for receiving a total of £80 billion in payouts,
“while millions of families are still suffering.”
Campaigners
for a vote to remain point out that not all bank
employees are considered wealthy and that financial services
companies are big employers of people from a range of
backgrounds and across many different business areas.
employees are considered wealthy and that financial services
companies are big employers of people from a range of
backgrounds and across many different business areas.
Mr.
Cameron’s and other politicians’ ardent support for the
financial sector ahead of the vote backfired with Kieran Walsh, an
East Londoner who owns a food-delivery business.
financial sector ahead of the vote backfired with Kieran Walsh, an
East Londoner who owns a food-delivery business.
While
unloading a delivery truck, Mr. Walsh said he isn’t
convinced the campaign to remain in the EU has ordinary
Britons’ best interests at heart.
convinced the campaign to remain in the EU has ordinary
Britons’ best interests at heart.
“David
Cameron went to Eton, now didn’t he? And that’s where
all the bankers went to school,” said the 54-year-old Mr. Walsh,
referring to the elite school near Windsor Castle. “They’re all in
each other’s pockets! They probably stand to make a lot of money
off [remaining in the EU.]”
all the bankers went to school,” said the 54-year-old Mr. Walsh,
referring to the elite school near Windsor Castle. “They’re all in
each other’s pockets! They probably stand to make a lot of money
off [remaining in the EU.]”
“We should
get out of the EU, and put the money we save into
developing industry and the north of England again,” he said, to
benefit struggling citizens. “Banking jobs will always just be for
developing industry and the north of England again,” he said, to
benefit struggling citizens. “Banking jobs will always just be for
those in the old boys’ club.” ASK THE OBOMB
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS:
The rich get much richer, cronies stay out of prison and illegals get millions
of jobs and billions in welfare…..
Poverty
has become more concentrated under Obama
By Nancy Hanover
2 May 2016
Under the Obama administration, more Americans
have
found themselves consigned to economic ghettos, living in
neighborhoods
where more than 40 percent subsist below
the poverty level. Millions more now
live in “high poverty” districts of 20-40
percent poverty, according to
recently released report by the Brookings Institution.
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS:
The final death
of the American Middle Class and the
staggering expansion of the LA RAZA
Mexican welfare state
of the American Middle Class and the
staggering expansion of the LA RAZA
Mexican welfare state
THE “HOPE &
CHANGE” HUCKSTER
WHO REALLY WAS GEORGE BUSH’S
THIRD AND FOURTH TERMS ON
STEROIDS!
WHO REALLY WAS GEORGE BUSH’S
THIRD AND FOURTH TERMS ON
STEROIDS!
“The
long-term reversal of the social gains made by the working class has
only
accelerated in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis. President Obama
has
overseen one of the greatest transfers of wealth from the working
class
to
the rich in world history.”
The return of “secular stagnation”
The return of “secular stagnation”
17 June 2016
Since the official end of the US recession in 2009, following the global financial crisis, the conventional wisdom from the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, has been that various “headwinds” are responsible for the failure of the American economy to return to anything resembling its previous growth path.
The underlying assumption has been that the financial crisis of 2008–2009 did not represent any kind of fundamental breakdown in the capitalist economy, but was merely a downturn in the business cycle, albeit a very severe one, from which there would be a return at some point to a “normal” pattern of economic expansion.
However, the press conference of Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen on Wednesday, following the decision by the Federal Open Market Committee not to lift interest rates, saw a marked shift. While her prepared remarks stuck by and large to the official script that the prevailing “headwinds” would ease over time, a rather different assessment emerged during Yellen’s question and answer session with reporters.
In view of the fact that the Fed’s outlook for interest rates had been revised sharply down, even though its projections for gross domestic product growth had not, Yellen was asked whether there had been “a dramatic change in the Committee’s view on the relationship of GDP to [interest] rates.”
Her answer indicated there had, or at least that behind the façade of official pronouncements the view is developing that a fundamental shift is underway.
She noted that the so-called “neutral rate”—that is, the interest rate needed to keep the economy growing at near full employment—was “quite depressed by historical standards” and that “many estimates would put it in real or inflation adjusted terms at near zero.”
Yellen referred, according to the usual script, to “headwinds” and what she called the “lingering effects of the financial crisis,” which were expected to “ease” over time. “But there are also more long lasting or persistent factors that may be at work that are holding down the longer run neutral rates,” she added.
Chief among those factors was “slow productivity growth, which is not just a US phenomenon, but a global phenomenon.” There was considerable uncertainty, but “productivity growth could stay low for a prolonged time” and we have “aging societies in many parts of the world that could depress this neutral rate. … The sense that maybe more of what’s causing this neutral rate to be so low are factors that are not going to be rapidly disappearing but will be part of the new normal.”
Yellen’s comments followed the warning by the Conference Board, a major US economic think tank, that productivity growth could go negative this year for the first time in more than three decades.
While she did not use the term herself,
Yellen’s remarks point to the emergence of
what former Treasury Secretary Lawrence
Summers and others have referred to as
“secular stagnation.” This term was first by
coined by economist Alvin Hansen in 1938 to
describe a structural condition in the
capitalist economy where, no matter how low
interest rates go, there is no growth because
the level of demand, particularly investment,
is not in a cyclical downturn but permanently
insufficient to ensure economic expansion.
Yellen’s remarks point to the emergence of
what former Treasury Secretary Lawrence
Summers and others have referred to as
“secular stagnation.” This term was first by
coined by economist Alvin Hansen in 1938 to
describe a structural condition in the
capitalist economy where, no matter how low
interest rates go, there is no growth because
the level of demand, particularly investment,
is not in a cyclical downturn but permanently
insufficient to ensure economic expansion.
Yellen’s reference to “aging societies” as an explanation for what she clearly recognises as a shift in the global economy, recalls nothing so much as the explanation of the classical bourgeois economist of the early nineteenth century, David Ricardo, who, when confronted with the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, ascribed it to the declining fertility of land and the fall in productivity in agriculture. As Marx pithily remarked, horrified by this prospect which called into question the historical viability of the capitalist economy, Ricardo took flight to the sphere of organic chemistry. Likewise Yellen, when confronted with persistent economic trends, seeks refuge in demographics.
In opposition to Ricardo, Marx explained that the real barrier to expanded capitalist production was not a product of nature, but of capital itself—private ownership of the means of production and the profit system.
Economic trends and tendencies reaching back over the past quarter century underscore the point made by Marx. Following the end of the post-war boom and the downturn in profit rates at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s, global capitalism experienced a series of crises, exemplified above all by the persistence of what was known as “stagflation”—low growth and recession combined with high inflation rates.
This crisis was temporarily overcome through an onslaught against the social position of the working class—the mass sacking of air traffic controllers in the US by Reagan in 1981 and the forcible state-suppression of the 1984–85 miners’ strike by the Thatcher government in Britain were key turning points—and the exploitation of new areas of cheap labour through the globalisation of production.
But the limited upturn in the rate of profit this produced did not bring about a return to the conditions of relative economic stability which marked the post-war boom. On the contrary, from the time of the October 1987 US stock market crash, world capitalism has been marked by increasing financial turmoil.
It became increasingly dependent on the injections of cheap money from the Fed and other central banks to quell ever-more severe financial storms—from the Mexican financial crisis of the early 1990s, the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 and the collapse of Long Term Capital Management, the collapse of the dot.com bubble in 2000–2001, leading to the financial crisis of 2008 set off by the bursting of the sub-prime mortgage bubble.
The Fed and other central banks responded to that crisis as they did in the past, with massive injections of cheap money. But despite the spending of trillions of dollars in the purchase of financial assets and the lowering of interest rates to zero and even below, there has been no revival in the real economy. The only effect of these measures has been to boost financial speculation to unprecedented heights, while producing ever-widening social inequality and worsening wages and social conditions for the world’s working class.
Economic history does not repeat itself. But the capitalist economy does have laws of motion, producing discernible trends and tendencies which find their expression not only in the economy but in politics.
The year 1914 is forever etched in history as the year of the outbreak of World War I. But it was economically significant as well. It marked a downturn in profit and growth rates that, despite all efforts to overcome it, continued through the 1920s and 1930s, resulting in the Great Depression.
These underlying processes produced a contraction in the world economy which led inexorably to the outbreak of World War II as the major capitalist powers engaged in an intensifying struggle for contracting markets and profits, first by use of economic nationalist methods—increased tariffs and the formation of currency blocs—and then by military means.
Today’s world is marked by the return of these conditions: the stagnation of the world economy, glutted markets in a series of commodities and industrial products, persistently low levels of investment, the driving force of economic growth, currency conflicts and intensifying financial crisis, to name but a few examples.
And they are inevitably leading in the same direction as in earlier decades: a world war for the division and re-division of the world economy, with potential nuclear consequences and the destruction of civilisation itself.
The fact that the objective contradictions of capitalism have now managed, at least partially, to have drummed their way into the heads of the overseers of global capitalism, such as Yellen, is an indication of the advanced state of the economic crisis.
It must be a signal to the international working class that the urgent issue before it is the struggle for an international socialist program for the overthrow of the reactionary and outmoded capitalist nation-state and profit system and the building of the world party of socialist revolution, the International Committee of the Fourth International, to lead it.
Nick Beams
HILLARIA’S
PROMISE TO ILLEGALS: 49 MORE MEXIFORNIAS
THEY INVADE BY
INVITATION OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY, THEN
MURDER, RAPE,
LOOT AND VOTE DEM FOR EVEN MORE.
THE LA RAZA
MEXICAN WELFARE STATE ON THE LEGALS’ BACKS…. Not one of us voting to be
Mexico’s trillion dollar welfare office!
(THE TRAGEDY FOR LEGALS LIVIING IN MEX-OCCUPIED CA IS THAT
THERE ARE NEARLY 15 MILLION LOOTING MEXICANS AND THEY’RE BREEDING LIKE CATHOLIC
BUNNIES. NOW DO THE MATH!)
LA RAZA-OCCUPATION and LOOTING in
MEXIFORNIA…. shocking!
Californians
bear an enormous fiscal burden as a result of an illegal alien population
estimated at almost 3 million residents. The annual expenditure of state and
local tax dollars on services for that population is $25.3 billion. That total
amounts to a yearly burden of about $2,370 for a household headed by a U.S.
citizen.
THE ENTIRE REASON FOR THE AMNESTY HOAX TO
LEGALIZE MEXICO’S LOOTING IS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED!
http://hillaryclinton-hitecollarcriminal.blogspot.com/2016/06/wall-street-and-mexico-rect-president.html
"The country is now at the edge
of an abyss following years of obfuscation, unaccountability, subterfuge, and
law evasion by the Obama administration that have numbed much of its citizenry
into a kind of base “group think acceptance” of government corruption and abuse
of power. Resetting Americans’ trust in government needs to start with holding
people in high office, like Hillary Clinton, accountable."
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